Damian Murphy is English barrister who has set up chambers specialising in the law and practice of electronic disclosure – a first in the UK.

Patrick Burke is eDiscovery counsel at Reed Smith and formally Assistant General Counsel at Guidance Software. I introduced them to each other.

In this video, Patrick asks Damian to explain some of the differences between the UK and US approaches to eDisclosure/eDiscovery, particularly in relation to legal hold.

They also discuss some of the proposed new federal rules of civil procedure, including the one which suggests that the scope of eDiscovery might be reduced. Damian warns that 15 years after the definition of a disclosable document was narrowed in England and Wales, many lawyers are still disclosing all “relevant” documents despite a much narrower scope now required (and I mean “required”) by the rules.